Below are some tidbits on baseball and sportscard collecting.
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baseball, football, basketball, hockey, sports and
non-sport cards and card collecting.

Q1: How long have sports cards been around ?

(part 1)
The first baseball trading cards date back to 1869. For many years,
baseball cards were packaged in packs of tobacco as a way to increase sales
the same way that today prizes are packaged in boxes of cereal.
In the 1920's and 1930's, candy and gum companies started packaging baseball
cards in their products as well.

Baseball card production was virtually halted in the early 1940's due to paper
shortages created by World War II. The "Modern Era" of baseball cards began in
1948 when Bowman Gum Inc. offered one card and one piece of gum in a pack for a penny.

The first important football set was the Mayo set featuring college players
in 1984. Other than the 1935 National Chicle set no other key football set was
issued until 1948 when noth Bowman and Leaf produced sets.

The issue below is featured elsewhere on this website:

1974 Topps DECKLE EDGE

This 72-card test issue set was released with a very limited distribution
on only the East Coast around Massachusetts making them quite scarce.
They were Officially simply called "Topps Baseball Photos"
but their serrated or "DECKLED" edge gave them the name they go by today.
The 2 7/8" x 5" inch cards were sold in either a 2 card pack
with gum or a 3 card pack with no gum for 5 cents.

The cards were meant to have the look
of the black and white movie star photos from the 1950's and feature a
black & white photo with a blue facsimilie autograph on the front.
The backs make this very scarce test issue even more interesting !
They feature handwritten script of the player's name, team, position & date
and location of the photograph as well as a mock newspaper article on the
player's career.

This was Topps 2nd "Deckle Edge" issue, their first being their smaller
and much more common 1969 Topps Deckle Edge which were inserts in
certain series of packs of 1969 Topps cards.

Variations of 1974 Topps Deckle Edge do exist,
making this issue even more fun and challenging to collect.
The backs can be found in either gray or a much scarcer white version.
Also, a more limited proof version with non-scalloped edges exists and
occasionally can be found.

1964 Topps Stand-Ups

Topps most popular 1960's test issue !!!
Blank-backed and unnumbered, these standard size cards were called
"Stand-Ups". "Stand-Ups" refers to a type of card that was die cut around
the player's picture. The background section then could be folded in half, so the card
could stand up by itself while the player's picture stood alone.
Directions for folding are on the background and when folded only the
green background remains.
1934-36 Batter Up and the 1951 Topps All-Star sets are 2 other popular
standup issues.

Thanks to the green and yellow borders and the likelihood that most cards
have been heavily folded, 1964 Stand-Ups are extremely difficult to
obtain in top grades.

The 77 card set features color photographs of the player on
yellow and green backgrounds. 22 of the 77 cards were single printed making
them twice as scarce and much higher in demand.